author
Maarten Gerritszoon Vries
A Dutch explorer and cartographer of the 1600s, he is remembered for a remarkable voyage that brought some of the first Western European written accounts of Ezo, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and the Sea of Okhotsk. His journeys helped shape how northern East Asia appeared on European maps.
1 Audiobook
Reize van Maarten Gerritsz. Vries in 1643 naar het Noorden en Oosten van Japan volgens het journaal gehouden door C.J. Coen, op het schip Castricum
by Maarten Gerritszoon Vries, Cornelis Janszoon Coen, Philipp Franz von Siebold
About the author
Born in Harlingen in 1589, Maarten Gerritszoon Vries served the Dutch East India Company and became known as a skilled navigator, commander, and mapmaker. Although not much is recorded about his early life, his name endured because of his role in expanding European knowledge of the seas north of Japan.
In 1643, he led an expedition from Batavia on the ship Castricum. During that voyage, he reached areas including Ezo, Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and the Sea of Okhotsk, becoming the first Western European known to leave an account of visiting several of these places. Reports from the journey influenced later maps, even when some of the geography was still imperfectly understood.
Vries died at sea near Manila in late 1647. Today he is remembered as one of the navigators whose voyages connected exploration, trade, and cartography at a time when much of the North Pacific remained mysterious to Europeans.